Spanish explorers are believed to have arrived at Mobile Bay in 1519, and the territory was visited in 1540 by the explorer Hernando de Soto. The first permanent European settlement in Alabama was founded by the French at Fort Louis de la Mobile in 1702. The British gained control of the area in 1763 by the Treaty of Paris, but had to cede almost all the Alabama region to the U.S. and Spain after the American Revolution. The Confederacy was founded at Montgomery in February 1861, and, for a time, the city was the Confederate capital.

Many Indian trail maps are contained in the book, Indian Trails of the Southeast: Extract from the 42nd Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnologyby William E. Meyers, originally published in 1925. This book is available online at Gustav's Library ($).